After seemingly endless months of a frenzied real estate market in the Puget Sound region in which buyers faced anemic supply and highly competitive bidding wars, the latest Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS) press release reports that we are “finally returning” to a more balanced market, as “buyers welcome more choices, moderating prices.”
Read MoreIn a recent special external affairs report, The Counselors of Real Estate® highlighted the Top Ten Issues Affecting Real Estate™ for 2018 – 2019, with a look at five short-term trends and five long-term items the industry should be looking at in the coming months and years. Below, you’ll find an outline of the five most pertinent issues impacting real estate now.
Read MoreS&P CoreLogic Case Shiller recently released their Home Price Index for April 2018 and in news that won’t come as a shock to many, Seattle has now led the nation in home price growth for 20 months in a row, marking the second longest streak in the history of the entire index. At 13.1% year-over-year growth, the Emerald City showed impressive gains from March through April, with increases of 2.8 percent and 2.7 percent respectively, the first time the city has experienced back-to-back increases above 2.25 percent since May of 2013.
Read MoreMike Rosenberg of Seattle Times has launched “an occasional column that aims to take you deeper inside our housing market” by answering frequently asked reader questions that involve all things in Seattle real estate. He decided to kick things off with a question on many Washingtonians minds: “Why exactly are home prices skyrocketing so quickly here?”
Read MoreThere was good news for Seattle-area homebuyers in the latest Northwest Multiple Listing Service Press Release, as April 2018 data revealed a slight increase in inventory. In all, “Northwest MLS brokers added 11,271 new listings to inventory during April, a gain of 6.3 percent when compared to March; and up nearly 5.9 percent versus a year ago.” Despite more homes on the market, just 6 of the 23 counties covered reported year-over-year inventory gains, and “King County was the only one in the Puget Sound region to notch a gain, up 13.6 percent from a year ago.”
Read MoreAccording to the most recent data from Northwest Multiple Listing Service, Seattle-area home prices have now reached $820,000, and as Seattle Times reports, the highest gains can be found in South Seattle, a traditionally more affordable part of the city. Looking at South Seattle’s neighborhoods, the Southwest region (including SODO and Beacon Hill) had a median home price of $222,000 in 2012, a figure that in 2018 has reached $661,000. In the Southeast area, the $275,000 median of 2012 has increased to $650,000.
Read MoreAt the end of March, the four most valuable companies in the world (Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon) were all U.S. technology businesses – half of which are Seattle founded and based. Wherever you look, Seattle is changing, growing and evolving and one of the more obvious places this is reflected is in the housing market. Spring is always the busiest time of year for real estate, and this year’s “busy season” is recording higher-than-ever prices due to reduced inventory. The median price for a single-family home in Seattle is $722,250 according to the NWMLS, and new listings have dropped 16.2 percent since last April.
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